ablest and best men, who has ever held office as Superintendent of Public Instruction in Pennsylvania. And this article is published by those friends, and wholly at their instance, as an indirect reply to the attacks of men brutal in instinct or such as "know not what they do." A pleasing incident in this connection, and one that has but recently come to our knowledge, is very significant. Of the eminent lawyers whom Dr. Higbee retained as counsel in the "late unpleasantness," not one would accept pay for his legal advice and services. They felt and said that the satisfaction of having rendered assistance to a friend in so just a cause was an all-sufficient reward.

When the question of the confirmation of Dr. Higbee was before the Senate, Hon. John Stewart, of Franklin county, made the following remarks eulogistic of the nominee:

His Excellency, Governor Hoyt, has sent to the Senate, in connection with the Superintendency of Public Instruction in this State, the name of Dr. Higbee. This distinguished honor having been conferred by His Excellency upon a citizen of the county which I represent in this body, it may not be improper, even though it be unnecessary, that I should certify to the Senate the qualifications and fitness of the gentleman named for this high position. It would not have occurred to me to do so except for the fact that Dr. Higbee has but few personal friends in the Senate, and is even unknown by reputation to most of them. This is not strange when it is considered that he comes from the seclusion of the student and the teacher, and not from the busy, crowded walks of public life. For many years he has been the honored chief of the principal institution of learning in Franklin county. All the active years of his life have been devoted to educational work. He has had a large, varied and successful experience in this connection. That experience has inspired him with an enthusiasm in the cause of education, has familiarized him with the method of our system and the wants of the people. His wide and varied learning justly commands the respect and admiration of the most eminent scholars of our State, and to his high scholastic attainments he adds the culture and the graces of a pure and noble life. He brings to the discharge of the duties of his office these high qualifications, and to these he adds a faithful devotion to the public interest. In saying this much for Dr. Higbee, and in predicting for his administration of the affairs of the high office a full measure of success, I feel that I but anticipate the popular approval which is sure to follow his work, I commend to the approval of this body his appointment.

State Supt. Wickersham, in announcing the appointment of his successor in The School Journal, wrote as follows:

Dr. Higbee enjoys the reputation of being a

very fine scholar. It is claimed that he is equally well versed in languages, mathematics, literature and history. Those who know him best give him credit for large executive power, but whatever its measure, he will find it taxed to the utmost in the management of the great work now intrusted to his hands. His weakness in taking charge of the school affairs of the Commonwealth-and no man is his friend who conceals it from him-is his failure to identify himself heretofore with public school men and public school interests, and his want of a practical knowledge of the extensive and varied and often complicated business details of his office. He takes command of an army of 40,000 teachers and school officers and 1,000,000 of children, almost unknown to every individual composing the great body. This disability may be overcome, but it can only be done by generalship of the highest kind, and a whole-souled devotion to the work in hand. The retiring officer, in writing thus, wishes him heartily the most distinguished success.

The disability of being personally unknown to the teachers and school men of the State was readily overcome, and with little conscious effort on the part of the genial Superintendent. It was a Veni, vidi, vici campaign, and the measure of success wished for by Dr. Wickersham was long since attained.

The New England Journal of Education in noticing at some length his annual report from the Department of Public Instruction for 1884, says:

"Dr. Higbee is one of the strongest State Superintendents we have in this country. He is the executive officer of the great Keystone State, whose schools are famous in all parts of the land. This State system of public schools is one of the broadest and best. The plan of the Normal Schools is simply gigantic. It has ten large Normal schools, which have done, and are doing, a great work. This volume contains, beside the report of the Superintendent, reports of county superintendents from its sixty-six counties; reports of forty-two city and borough superintendents; reports of the principals of its ten Normal Schools; together with many statistical tables.

"He is himself clearly seen through the printed pages of his report,-his scholarship, his high manly and moral tone, his administrative ability, his straight-forward business way of doing his work and of expressing himself concerning that work. We have been impressed while reading his strong utterances with the power of the man that shows throughout this official document. He is a man of very great zeal and enthusiasm in his labors. Within the four years that he has been in office, he has trav

eled much over the entire State, visiting and lecturing at teachers' institutes and other educational assemblies, watching with a critical eye all tendencies in the educational work, and moulding educational sentiment, as few

men could do. He has delivered lectures on school topics in nearly every county, and in some counties has lectured before institutes for three successive years. His work in this direction alone has been of inestimable value to the school interests of Pennsylvania. He is recognized as one of the most accomplished scholars of the State. No one questions this who knows him. As a classical scholar, he has read nearly all the Greek and Latin authors extant. His attainments in philosophy also are high. He is at home in the history of philosophy, and is quite a specialist in psychology. His keen insight into the philosophy of education and his clear and forcible statement of

the truth as he sees it, have given him great power in the direction of educational thought throughout the State."

We could fill The Journal with matter upon this subject, but close this part of our article with the following from the editorial columns of the Chambersburg Repository, which appeared shortly after the slander crusade had been fairly inaugurated:

As the true inwardness of the fierce outcry against the management of the Soldiers' Orphan Schools of Pennsylvania manifests itself, the people interested in the schools condemned demand more evidence than has been furnished upon which to implicate Rev. Dr. Higbee in any responsibility for wrong-doing charged against the schools in question. Here in Franklin County, where Dr. Higbee has been known for a quarter of a century as an educator and a faithful herald of the Word, the scurrilous abuse heaped upon him by some of the public prints cannot affect his stainless character or detract from the estimate held of his capabilities for the high position he occupies as Superintendent of Public Instruction of the Commonwealth. So efficiently had he discharged the duties of his trust that there was a universal request on the part of the friends of public education throughout the State for his re-appointment to the position he occupies, and Gov. Pattison but recognized this sentiment when he ignored the claims of the candidates in his own party for the office and continued the incumbent.

It is utterly preposterous to suppose that it was the province of Dr. Higbee to enter into a minute inspection of all the inner workings of the Soldiers' Orphan Schools of the State. Inspectors were appointed with the approbation of the Governor to watch over these institutions, the Governor himself had visited them from time to time, and representatives of the Grand Army of the Republic were unremitting in their oversight of these wards of the State. The press of

Franklin county, with the same propriety, could vilify Judge Rowe for any irregularities which might exist in the management of the jail or almshouse after they had been favorably reported upon by a Grand Jury deputized to rigidly inspect them.

That Dr. Higbee will emerge from this bitter turmoil unsmirched, nobody who knows upon what he has built can entertain a shadow of doubt. Those who have been familiar with his life know that he has been an untiring worker for the welfare of others, that he is devoid of selfishness, that his charities have always equalled his estate, that nothing arouses his indignation so much as an act of inhumanity. With a full sense of his accountability to the Great Ruler, and valuing his good name above all price, his political enemies may scheme and conspire to their hearts' content to pull Dr. Higbee down from his lofty pedestal, but their venomous darts cannot reach or harm him.

To the showing recently made by the Sureply to Ex-Inspector Wagner's charges— perintendent of Soldiers' Orphan Schools in some of them foolish, and others wicked both in form and purpose-there has been no answer. Not a newspaper, however hostile to the Department or rabid upon the question of Orphan Schools, has had the effrontery to attempt defence of the ex-Inspector. The Carlisle Volunteer, a representative newspaper of this rabid class, says briefly: "If one were to believe Higbee, he is the most lied-about man in the service of the State." We think the Volunteer may "believe Higbee," and we know that if any other officer of the State government has, dnring the past sixteen months, been "lied about" in more vigorous fashion or with more deadly intent, he deserves the most hearty sympathy. Fair play is a jewel! Let there be no more false issues-which have been the capital of this prosecution from the beginningbut fight the fight out, as it should have been fought from the first, only upon charges that can be substantiated, if need be, in a court of justice. The following editorial comment, from newspapers in different parts of Pennsylvania, is of interest in this connection:

GENERAL WAGNER SCORES HIMSELF.

When Inspector Wagner asserted in his final report of his investigation of the Soldiers' Orphan Schools, that Superintendent Higbee had 'pigeon-holed" certain drafts of Rules and Regulations for the better government of the schools, the friends of the latter were surprised if not pained. Those who knew him best believed him above the suspicion of an attempt to thwart any measure calculated to improve the management of those institutions. They therefore awaited Dr. Higbee's explanation, satisfied that he had not done what Gen. Wagner charged without some good reasons for his action. The

abstract of the Inspector's report was published at a time when Dr. Higbee was watching at the bedside of his dying son, and this, and the subsequent death of that son, necessarily delayed the notice of the charge that its importance demanded.

Dr. Higbee's reply, which we print to-day, will no doubt equally surprise the friends of Gen. Wagner. By the correspondence relating to those Rules and Regulations, Dr. Higbee convicts his accuser of the meanest kind of falsehood, to say nothing of conduct utterly unbecoming a gentleman of his social and official standing. Out of his own mouth, or, what is still more conclusive, by the record of his own pen, General Wagner stands condemned. Whoever is responsible for "pigeon-holing," certainly it is not Dr. Higbee or any one in his "department." If the "pigeon-holing" was done in the Executive "department," General Wagner, as the faithful and impartial representative of the interests of the orphans of his comrades, cught to have had the manliness to say so, and not attempt, directly or by innuendo, to implicate the man who was doing all he could do to secure the approval of these Rules and Regulations from Inspector and Governorefforts which were abandoned only when the law and the pressure from the Grand Army Posts compelled him to admit orphans under the old regulations.-Lancaster New Era, May 25th.

To the Philadelphia Record belongs the unenviable credit of having originated the unfounded and cruel charges brought against Superintendent Higbee, of the Soldiers' Orphan Schools. In its frantic efforts to "set up" Governor Pattison in an onslaught against the Superintendent, it fairly exceeded its usual violence when it has once taken up a hobby. In conjunction with the Governor one of its editorial staff swung around the circle of these schools and played the part of Inquisitor-General. Molehills were manufactured into mountains, and a more desperate attempt to discover mare's nests was never made. The consequence of all this was that the Governor attempted to drive an innocent man out of office under a cloud; but his malignant attempt proved abortive, and as a last resort he appointed General Louis Wagner to make an investigation and report. This was done; and as the Inspector fully understood the reasons of his appointment, he too did his utmost to fulfil the wishes of the Governor by a report which tried to do by insinuation what it could not do by an honest statement of details.

But this was not all. The violence of the Record's original denunciation had such an effect on the contemporary press of Philadelphia that almost without exception, and without the slightest investigation of the charges, they took up the Record's calumnies and reiterated them through columns of unjust and bitter denunciation. They never grew tired of this pastime, and made but little effort to place before their readers the result of investigations carried on by equally capable but more honest investigators than those put upon the scent by an angry and prejudiced Governor.

But in the fullness of time Superintendent Higbee has seen fit to answer the base insinuations of General Wagner. To prevent all possible charges of making false representations or garbled statements, he gives to the public the correspondence that passed between them. This was given to the press on Wednesday last, and, to speak mildly, it puts Governor Pattison's pet, General Wagner, into a hole so deep that his best friends might wish he would never emerge therefrom. Superintendent Higbee proves that General Wagner fully carried out the wishes of the Governor to entrap him and lead him to the commission of blunders. But the Superintendent declined the invitation and now counters on General Wagner with crushing effect. The Times truly declares "Higbee scores Wagner."

But there is another and if possible a still more disreputable phase of the question presented to the public for its consideration and judgment. The Record, which led the assault on Dr. Higbee, and the Press and North American, which kindly followed suit in many columns of unfair and virulent denunciation, had no room in their columns yesterday to give even so much as a passive editorial notice of the manner Dr. Higbee vindicated himself and pilloried General Wagner. They remained as closely shut up as oysters, because his vindication is their condemnation; and under such circumstances editorial courtesy and fairness is allowed to drop out of sight. Is that fair, is it honest, is it in keeping with that assumption of virtue these journals are continually parading before the public?

General Louis Wagner is now a very prominent official of the government of Philadelphia. He is prominent and influential and has favors to grant. He is for the time being one of the anointed; and consequently for the already named journals to say anything to his discredit is hardly to be expected, especially by those who would be writing their own condemnation by so doing. And this is high-toned journalism!—Mr. J. M. W. Geist, Editor Lancaster New Era, May 27th.

We have had occasion to call the attention of our readers to the malignant and unjust attacks made by Ex-Governor Pattison upon the Soldiers' Orphan Schools of the State, and were loath to reopen the subject upon the intimation of a controversy between Dr. Higbee and General Wagner. The further, however, we look into the facts with which Dr. Higbee meets the insinuations of Wagner, the more we are convinced that the Superintendent could not, in justo himself, have remained silent. We believe it is the opinion of all fair-minded people that the so-called investigation by Governor Pattison was started with the deliberate purpose of humiliating Dr. Higbee. We confess we did not expect to see General Wagner sustaining it, and for these reasons:

The Grand Army, the natural guardians of the children of their dead comrades, investigated the charges, reported them false and re-elected the Rev. Mr. Sayres chaplain of their organization. Would they have so distinguished a man whom they believe guilty of the charges made

against him by the Governor when he was removed? Mrs. Attick, herself the daughter of a soldier, was appointed to the place of Mrs. Hutter, also removed. She started out very quietly, and nothing was heard from her until she made her report, which was a complete refutation of the charges, she alleging that the children were well fed, well clothed and well taught. Mrs. Attick also, with a generosity showing her to be a worthy daughter of a gallant father, testified to the universal love for Mrs. Hutter which she found among the children. But Mrs. Attick is a woman with no political axe to grind and no private ambition to gratify. The Legislature refused to investigate the department, although Dr. Higbee invited such an investigation, evidently considering that the charges had been exploded.

For all these reasons, we are surprised at the position taken by General Wagner. We now find that had we gauged his character by the manner in which he started out to make his inspection, we should have arrived at a proper conception of it. The ostentation with which he announced that he would work without pay, the frequency with which he was interviewed, the tone of all the interviews, and now his final report, still charging mismanagement and complaining that rules and regulations, the product of the united wisdom of the Governor and himself, were pigeon-holed by the School Department, all go to show that General Wagner was anxious to gain notoriety for himself at the expense of the Soldiers' Orphan Schools. This last charge of pigeon-holing, Dr. Higbee refutes with General Wagner's own letters, proving it not only false but malicious, and in this predicament he stands. We are sorry for General Wagner. We congratulate Dr. Higbee. We take to ourselves the moral that while truth may be at the bottom of a well, bona fide seekers rarely hunt it with a brass band-Williamsport Gazette.

We are to have another chapter of controversy over the Soldiers' Orphans' School management, but it seems altogether probable that the contest will be confined to Superintendent Higbee and ex-Inspector Wagner. This renewal of the battle came somewhat unexpectedly, but is characterized by unusual virulence. It is remembered that when Governor Pattison dismissed Rev. Mr. Sayres and Mrs. Hutter from the office of Inspector of Soldiers' Orphans, Schools, he appointed General Louis Wagner as Inspector, and charged him to make a thorough examination of all the schools in which the State maintains soldiers' orphans. General Wagner performed his duty, and subsequently made a report in which he went far out of his way to make an attack on Superintendent Higbee. Among other things he charged that the Superintendent had pigeon-holed documents pertaining to the schools in his department. This charge was made in the pompous and blustering manner characteristic of General Wagner, and without designating what documents have been thus "pigeon-holed."

Dr. Higbee addressed a respectful note to Wagner, requesting him to explain his accu

sation. To this Wagner made an evasive reply, giving no details, and simply referring Dr. Higbee to his (Wagner's) report. Thereupon the Superintendent replied that the charge that he had pigeon-holed any document pertaining to the management of the Soldiers' Orphan Schools was "a deliberate falsehood." Instead

of meeting this in the only way it could properly and decently be met, viz: by enumerating the documents that had been pigeon-holed, General Wagner addressed a letter to Dr. Higbee, the language of which can be properly characterized only by the term brutal. Wagner must have utterly lost his head when he applied such terms as "bully" and "blackguard" to a man like Rev. Dr. Higbee, but this will not greatly surprise those who have had occasion to come into contact with General Wagner.

Dr. Higbee has published a lengthy letter giving the details of the entire controversy growing out of the original charges of mismanagement in the Soldiers' Orphans' Schools, and closes by giving General Wagner as genteel a thrashing as he ever received. While due allowance must be made for the provocation under which Dr. Highee labored, it would nevertheless, in our judgment, have been wiser for the Doctor to have contented himself with an emphatic denial of the charges and challenged his accuser to prove his allegations or stand pilloried before the Commonwealth as a defamer and a slanderer.-Scranton Republican.

General Wagner several weeks ago made the damaging statement in his final report as Inspector of the Soldiers' Orphans' Schools, that "several drafts of contracts and of schedules of rules and regulations * * * have been pigeonholed at the department." Dr. Higbee asked Gen. Wagner for an explanation of his charge, without receiving a satisfactory_reply, and he finally addressed a note to the General saying that if he meant that he or his Department had "pigeon-holed" any such document, it was a deliberate falsehood.

To this Gen. Wagner impertinently replied, when Dr. Higbee felt called upon to make public all of the correspondence between himself, ex-Governor Pattison and Inspector Wagner on the subject of contracts, and it places the Inspector in anything but an agreeable light. It clearly demonstrates that the "pigeon-holing" was not in Dr. Higbee's department, and that if there was any "pigeon-holing" it must have been in the Executive office. This the Doctor proves by a letter from Gen. Wagner himself, who in acknowledging the receipt of the final form of rules and regulations prepared and submitted by Dr. Higbee, adds: "They go forwarded in this mail (Nov. 27, 1886), to Governor Pattison, with several suggestions, of which find copy enclosed." Clearly Gen. Wagner is in an awkward dilemma, and it will be necessary for him to invent new insinuations. In the " scoring" role Dr. Higbee has most unmercifully turned the tables, and he handles the male Inspector without gloves, in all of which it is shown that while it may be agreeable to hunt the tiger, it is not so pleasant when the tiger

hunts his pursuer. Next week we will publish all of the correspondence relating to the controversy, together with Dr. Higbee's scathing comments.-Chambersburg Public Opinion.

Dr. Higbee is evidently not a non-resistant. General Wagner, in his report as "Inspector" of the Orphan Schools, makes reflections that seem to be unjust, on Superintendent Higbee and his department. Dr. Higbee writes to him for an explanation of one of his charges, characterizing it as a "deliberate falsehood." The doughty general replies in a short letter, no doubt intended to annihilate the Doctor, but it

only invites a reply in which the self-important Inspector is flayed. The Doctor shows that while the General was assuming to have done so much for the schools, "no one connected with them has the slightest knowledge of such service rendered."-Columbia Spy.

As we predicted, Brother General Louis Wagner, of Philadelphia, never made a bigger mistake in his life than when he shot at Dr. Higbee upon the supposition that he was a ghost. The latter may be bald and gray and venerable looking, but when it comes to a matter of language, of conscience, of business, or of right, it will take more than one Wagner to get away with him. Those who want to see how General Wagner is polished off by Dr. Higbee, should get the June number of the Pennsylvania School Journal. It will be worth a whole year's subscription.-Phænixville Messenger.

THE MAN AND THE TEACHER.

ONE

effort.

BY THEODORE H. RAND.

NE of the characteristics of to-day in all our work and undertakings is associated Men and women join hands and work together that they may bring their undertaking to a successful completion. Thus our teachers meet together, talk over their affairs together, and so are better able to discharge the duties that devolve upon them.

There is one thought that has occurred to me which I desire here to present: It is possible that teachers may fore-shorten their own horizon by a too exclusive outlook upon life through their own profession. It is quite possible that through this lens we may see everything, and thereby fail to see many things that it is necessary we should

see.

Man is larger than his profession. Consequently, man should not look at everything through the professional lens, lest he limit and circumscribe himself, and fail to get that development that is essential to his professional success.

How can you best prepare for the teaching profession? for any profession? Cultivate yourself, all the power that is in you;

get it free; bring it out that you may use it. Cultivate yourself that you may be a man or a woman, and having fairly succeeded in that direction you will be better able to discharge the duties of your profession. Do not trust professional culture for success. Professional culture is only a means to an end. There is such a thing as a man's being hampered by his profession. Therefore our great aim should be, man first, teacher afterward. We should all keep this great aspiration in mind. How

can I rise to the fulness of the endowment with which God has created man? When I reach that I shall be better qualified to engage in the particular work of my profession. How is this self-culture to be brought about? There is no royal way to it.

But first of all the man or woman should

get into his or her heart that there is such a thing as life; not mere existence-something that makes him reach up and take hold of things beyond him, something that fills him with aspirations of gladness and joy, and makes him hunger to act and serve. The possession of this thought will give you an insight. You will see that everything is full of opportunity. Provided one has the true alchemy of the soul everything can be turned into nourishment for the development of true life. Here is a teacher: let him say: "I intend to be, it is my duty to be, I shall be, a true citizen in the fullest sense of the term. I will take.. upon myself a share of the responsibilities of this community. I will indentify myself with the life of the people with whom my lot is cast."

The man who does that in a true spirit will grow in thought, extend in sympathy, and become more helpful in his service. Carry that principle into the field of the Moral! Every teacher should indentify himself with some Christian church, that he may not only be receptive of good, but may serve in this capacity, and thus develop his own spiritual nature. Thus he may become more of a man everywhere. Socially he may help others. Let him fill himself with everything right and true that is possible in a social way, that his own nature may be deepened, refined, elevated. Every teacher ought to place himself in a condition where he can enrich himself the most in self-development in order that he may be the better able to discharge the functions of a teacher. Suppose you had a choice of teachers. One was a well-trained man professionally; the other was not well-trained in that line, but was a round man, a full man, a cultured